A group of MEPs is launching a website for European Parliament staff and EU officials to raise the alarm about “shady lobbying” by big tech companies and other interest groups.
Paul Tang, a Dutch Social Democrat MEP who co-leads the initiative, said the “lobbying leak hotline” would be an early warning system and was necessary as parliament had faced “shady lobbying” from powerful tech companies. They wanted to influence their decisions. . He cited practices such as astroturfing, where large companies use front organizations to represent their interests through the back door.
The “hotline”: an encrypted website, lobbyleaks.eu – will allow anyone to leave anonymous tips about suspicious lobbying tactics. It is based on a German initiative, and the tips will be investigated by the German NGO LobbyControl and a Brussels-based campaign group, the Corporate Europe Observatory, which monitors attempts to influence EU institutions.
Tang, an MEP since 2014, said lobbying was “an integral part of the job of politics” but became problematic when interest groups tried to hide behind front organizations or targeted politicians with personalized ads.
When legislators were negotiating the Digital Markets Law and the Digital Services Law, landmark legislation to regulate large Internet companies, he expected strong interest from affected companies, but had not anticipated the “unconventional lobbying” that came his way. .
Tang only discovered after the laws were passed the extent to which he and other MEPs had been “bombarded” with targeted ads on their social media. After the legislation [passed]we came to the conclusion that there was shady lobbying,” he said.
He also encountered “underground lobbying” from organizations claiming to be the voice of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), despite being funded by big tech companies.
Following that experience, he and two fellow Social Democratic lawmakers filed a complaint with the EU’s transparency registry last October, accusing nine industry associations of “impersonating” SMEs without being open about the big tech companies they led or led. They financed their organizations.
The EU Transparency Register is a database of interest groups, companies and individuals seeking to influence EU decision-making. Managed by the three main EU institutions (the European Commission, the Council of the EU and the European Parliament), the transparency register has almost 12,500 entries. Being on the registry is often presented as a badge of legitimacy; lobbyists can only get access passes to the european parliament if they are in the database.
Tang said any organization found to have misrepresented itself should be deregistered.
The MEPs’ complaints were prompted, in part, by a Guardian article written by a former European Commission official, Georg Riekeles, who recounted corporate efforts to water down EU regulation on targeted advertising. Brussels has “never seen” so many SMEs and start-ups coming forward to lobby, he wrote. It was argued that small and medium-sized businesses would be hit the hardest by the ad tracking ban.
Riekeles named several industry groups involved in such lobbying, including SME Connect and Allied for Startups. SME Connect is linked to Friends of SMEs, whose members include Amazon and Google. Calling itself “a global voice for the startup community,” Allied for Startups is sponsored by a 14-member business council that includes Amazon, Google and other big tech companies.
After the complaints were aired, Amazon and Google denied any breach of EU lobbying rules, in statements to the TechCrunch website. Industry associations, including SME Connect and Allied for Startups, also denied any wrongdoing.
Riekeles said she had no reason to doubt the sincerity of the organizations, but argued that they were not transparent about who they represented. “These links are certainly a matter of public interest, but they are often not publicized,” he said.
The Corporate Europe Observatory documented these practices in a 2021 report which found that 612 tech companies and trade associations spent 97 million euros (£86 million) a year lobbying the EU, making the sector the biggest lobbying force in Brussels, ahead of oil and gas, the chemicals and pharmaceuticals.
Bram Vranken, an activist with the Corporate Europe Observatory, said the Big Five tech companies – Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft – spent almost €27m a year lobbying the EU, figures based on their latest reports to the registry of EU transparency.
“[Technology companies] they are funding an entire ecosystem of organizations, from think tanks, interest groups to front groups. They have a lot of potential to set the agenda and weaken the regulation that is brewing,” she said. “Lobbyleaks will help expose this kind of duplicitous and opaque influence that has become the focus of Big Tech’s lobbying tactics.”
The website also draws on the experience of MEPs in making complaints to the EU’s transparency register. Tang said he feared that the organization, run by a secretariat of nine full-time officials, was understaffed.
EU officials at the transparency registry have yet to reach a judgment on the nine complaints filed by Tang last October. A spokesman for the European Parliament said they could not disclose any information about the complaints, including the timing of any decision. The spokesperson said they could not give an opinion on whether the secretariat was understaffed.
Tang said MEPs will soon be debating major regulation affecting tech companies, including legal proposals to combat child sexual abuse. “Sometimes you need a quick response to these complaints. That’s why we also have the leak hotline in the lobby, because you want to have an early warning system. You don’t want to find out after the file.
The website is also endorsed by French radical-left MEP Manon Aubry and German environmentalist Daniel Freund, a former Transparency International activist. Organizers expect other MEPs from across the political spectrum to announce their support in the coming days.
